(Here’s the third in the triad of pieces which I find heartening as well as helpful for refocusing amidst chaos. Charlie’s writing amazes me in how it penetrates the heart and mind even more today than when it was first published. ~Beckita)

(text edited out) I occasionally hear from people who are critical that I am frightening people with my predictions of a Storm. That is absurd. I am not predicting a Storm. Twenty years ago I was predicting a Storm. Now we are in it. I responded to the friend who sent me this ( edit: “this” refers to an email) in part like this:

“When bombs are bursting all around, noting that bombs are bursting is NOT working anyone into a frenzy. I did not create the Paris, San Bernardino, Belgium or Pakistani atrocities…I did not create ISIS…I did not create the global financial crisis…I did not encourage China to militarize international waters. I did not encourage North Korea to shoot off missiles and threaten the world with nukes. This is just silly…this comment speaks as if people did not read me they would not notice that anything was wrong at all. For crying out loud, people are getting into a frenzy because they watch the STINKING news – which I have nothing to do with.

For decades I said nothing about the Storm to any but my Priests and a few friends I trust, knowing that to speak of such a thing when it was not obvious COULD be scary to many. When the contours of the Storm that I had described privately became publicly obvious to anyone paying attention, I DID come forward – to proclaim a Rescue and to encourage people to be part of it now, to assure them that God is NOT done with us.

Seriously, does anyone think that if I would just shut up ISIS would go away, China would retreat to her own borders, officials would be responsible with the economy, North Korea and Iran would dismantle their nukes and all would suddenly be sweetness and light? Absurd. If I shut up and went away these things would still be deepening – and who would be there to give credible hope that God has a plan and is not done with us?

I have to tell you I am a little weary of people acting as if I summoned the Storm I accurately described decades ago. Rather, I waited, hoping it was not true…and when it came proclaimed a Rescue – that this is God’s purification. (text edited out) If I shut up, the Storm remains and who is there to give credible hope of Rescue?”

(text edited out) The prediction of the Storm I was making over two decades ago is not the heart of my purpose. In fact, its main importance is that the consistency and accuracy of it lends credibility to my assurance that God is not done with us and this is lead-up to a Rescue. (text edited out)

I have been gratified at how well regular readers have embraced the fundamental heart of my message to acknowledge God, take the next right step, and be a sign of hope. Drive-by readers still come up with some lurid mutations of what I emphasize, though. So I am going to do a candid review of some things that are absolutely critical.

Do you know why I don’t discourage people from doing some small, prudent preparation? It is not because of the objective protection those preparations will give them. Rather, it is for the same reason that I would not snatch a teddy bear away from a frightened child. It soothes people, so I leave it alone.

I am a serious student of history. We live in an age where the elite leadership throughout the world – in politics and cultural institutions – is almost universally stupid, incompetent, irresponsible, feckless – and supremely convinced of their own superiority. It is unprecedented in its scope. Plenty of nations have been governed by self-absorbed, bumbling idiots – but to have almost the whole world governed by such at the same time is astonishing. Yet that is how it is. The first stanza of W.B. Yeats poem of a century ago, “The Second Coming,” is downright prophetic for these times:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

I have said repeatedly that the rules have been changed – and it will soon be obvious. Everyone who gets their primary sense of security from anything other than God will have it taken from them. Everyone. This is not just for some, but for all. If you use anything I have said to devise your own plan beyond acknowledging God, taking the next right step and being a sign of hope, your plan will be smashed against the rocks of reality. The only way you can have anything is if you have it as if having not – and if you can do that, then you can have not as if you have. Whatever “preparations” you do can only be in support of the central issue – to acknowledge God, take the next right step and be a sign of hope. If you are focused on the central issue, then you know that whether you have or have not is God’s call and will be used to help you carry out His will.

Some think they are smart and so, if they know enough, can outwit God. If you are the smartest person in the history of the world, your knowledge does not amount to the babblings of a three-month old in eternity. Others trust to their wealth and means to evade God. In these times, wealth and means are not as reliable as Monopoly money. “Give us this day our daily bread” must be your humble cry to the Lord for all the good your wealth will do you. Others think their power and prestige will exempt them. The graveyards are full of the bones of the formerly powerful and prestigious. Betting on your own power and prestige in these times is like betting on a gnat to beat a lion. Others are so certain of their own moral rectitude that they think God will exempt them from the vicissitudes of the Storm. God is going to show all of these what fragile clay their feet are formed of.

We have gotten to a point where self-actualization trumps everything. Vanity reigns supreme. Even many clerics plot and scheme over how to manipulate those around them and crawl over the backs of their peers to gain position or prestige. It is the masque of the red death, a frenzied dance of despair for a culture that believes life has no meaning except for the indulging of appetites and the gaining of notoriety. It is the logical end of materialism. Marx finally got his way and we are buried under a bitter harvest of quiet desperation at the emptiness of it all. Yet people try all the more frantically to get the better of their fellows and colleagues.

(text edited out) “What you desire most is most effective against you. Desire God and all shall be added.” That is worth deep contemplation in these times.

I warn you not to put your hopes in traditional politics. It is collapsing around our very eyes. I know that is the way we have always moved on. Not this time. If you are riding a bus and it pulls over to the side of the road because it has caught fire, the engine has dropped out and the wheels have fallen off, getting a new driver will not help with the problem. Right now, getting passionate about politics can only tempt you to sin against charity. Our problem is spiritual and cultural. It is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Salvation will not come via a heroic figure from without, but by the quiet resolve to follow God by loving our neighbor from within.

When I speak of the rules changing, I mean that God is doing a new thing, something amazing. It is a great blessing or a great curse, depending on your interior disposition. Whatever you sincerely do or hope for another will return to you twofold. If you sincerely hope for the good of another, if you do some simple kindness for them, it will return to you twofold. If you try to attack them with malice, to undermine them with bitterness, or manipulate them to your advantage, it is yourself that you are savaging. The only way forward in these times is to deny yourself and devote yourself to the good of others. It is a primary way in which you express your love for God. That does not mean you must become a wimp. When France’s King Charles VII started dithering over peace negotiations with the English, St. Joan of Arc testily told him the only peace they would obtain from the English would be at the point of a lance. If you fail to defend those who are under attack, again, you shall reap what you have sown twofold.

I have said repeatedly over the last year and a half that everyone will be sifted. So it has been coming to pass. I have heard from more than a few who thought they would be a safe haven throughout that are undergoing severe trials and turmoil. Don’t you know that God has little use for sunshine soldiers in these times? If you have not proven yourself when the smell of burnt sulpher fills the air to the accompanying boom of cannons, how can you know you will not lose heart in the Storm? So be glad of the trials and trust in God. He is not proving you to Himself, but to yourself, so you may walk with confident trust in Him as the din grows – and thus be a steely sign of hope to those around you.

I have been thankful to meet so many people who have put some of their means into preparing places where those who might be displaced or homeless may come to find shelter and work. Generosity directed towards others never goes unrewarded, though it does not exempt anyone from the vicissitudes of the Storm. Most people will stay where they are for the duration of the Storm, but some will not. It is good to prepare to live in community helping each other.

Yet I have also heard some who claim that refuges are being set aside where all the good little boys and girls will go to sit out the Storm. That will not happen. The Storm comes to all. As it is written, God sends the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45). If you are truly among the just, even in the midst of your trials, you will help others caught in the Storm. That is your portion, not to sit and be served by angels while everyone else suffers.

A great dividing line has risen and everyone must choose where they stand. On Easter we celebrated the Resurrection of Christ. You must take hold of His robe to rise with Him or sink into the dust of the chaos we have made of our culture. You are called to be among the rising cohort that prepares the way for the great Rescue Our Lord is sending Our Lady to accomplish, but so long as you remain caught in your vanity, ambition and dreams of self-actualization, you just add to the chaos of our toxic culture.

I ask you again not to over-anticipate things based on novels you have read or movies you have seen. Frankly, I think there will be a lot less violence than some imagine and a whole lot more confusion and chaos than most any can imagine, at least in the early stages. Remember that God has a plan, a plan for your welfare and not your destruction. He will wipe out the vanity of all. So long as you pray like the Pharisee, thanking God that you are not like other men, you shall sink ever deeper into the mire. When you have the humility to pray as the tax collector, crying “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” you will become a useful instrument in the Hands of the Master. (Luke 18:9-14)

The confusion of the present age influences all. Do not be shaken if you hear something peculiar from a Prince of the Church. The rain falls on them, too. Remember that Our Lord said the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church He founded. Work, then, with your Priests and Bishops to mount the assault against those gates, building each other up and covering each other’s nakedness. Now is not the time for retreat, but to sound the charge. May every street in the world become the sacred route of a Procession of believers behind Our Lord in the Eucharist and Our Lady, who is sent to Rescue us! As even the most secular and cynical lose hope in a world visibly spiraling into collapse, let them see the community of believers walking with confident faith in our two Pillars. Many will convert and begin to participate in the Rescue because of this. But first, you must deny yourself and take up your cross – see yourself for how little you are…and then you can begin to see yourself for how much you are, what you are truly called to be: Our Lord’s own beloved.

(text edited out) I think in the course of this past Lenten season I got a little better understanding of it. You must choose God through love of your fellows or perish under the weight of your own machinations.

I come not to proclaim a Storm. We are living the Storm – and near the entrance to the fullness of it. I come to proclaim a Rescue – and to call you to participate in it, to prepare the way. Choose or perish. I have told you true.

(Postscript by CJ on July 10, 2020: I am very grateful to Beckita for finding and re-publishing these pieces. I am inundated these days by people offering frantic messages on what will happen next, how it will come, and how to protect ourselves. I got some important details wrong on how it would ensue. The overall sweep, however, has been on target. The “global civil war fought on cultural lines” I spoke of consistently decades ago is upon us. I also spoke consistently that this would be God’s call to us to stand with Him – to do the little we could, right in front of us, trusting Him to make up for our many deficiencies. Some have acted, of late, as if I am saying something new when I insist on that approach. I have said the same thing since I started, but people are finally hearing the things that I tried hardest to emphasize all along – and it is not new. God will not reward you for your belief by exempting you from trial: He is testing you that you may show you really will stand with and trust Him in whatever trials may come. By your actions, you will see both where you are weak and where you are strong. This is not the time for more prophecy. The battle is on and it is the time for action. The action you are called to is to acknowledge God in everything you do; take the next right step as best you can, taking full responsibility for it and trusting God to correct what will be your many errors; and be a sign of hope to those around you. It is what I emphasized then and what I emphasize now. God is close at hand to each of us. – CJ)